SPORTS WORLD SPECIALS

SPORTS WORLD SPECIALS; The Fame Game

By Robert McG. Thomas Jr. and David A. Raskin

Published: May 30, 1988

He may not be the most famous man in America, but Don Dunphy is in the running. He has been inducted into eight halls of fame, and as far as anyone seems to know, that may be a record.

Dunphy, as no one needs to be reminded, is the 78-year-old semiretired broadcaster who became famous as the voice of boxing during a 40-year career.

For all his halls, Dunphy got off to a slow start. After his first induction, into the National Broadcasters Hall of Fame in Freehold, N.J., in 1978, he had to wait five years for his second, the World Boxing Hall of Fame in Los Angeles.

Since then he has averaged more than one induction a year: the American Sportscasters Hall of Fame in New York City and the Manhattan College Athletic Hall of Fame (1984), the National Sportscasters and Sportwriters Hall of Fame in Salisbury, N.C., and the Long Island Athletic Hall of Fame (1986), and B'nai B'rith Hall of Fame (1987).

''It might be a record,'' said Al Cartwright, the executive director of the Association of Sports Museums and Halls of Fame, which has some 70 halls on its rolls, a fraction of the national total. Although Cartwright has not cross-checked the induction lists, he said he could not imagine that anyone, even Jim Thorpe, could be in eight halls.

It is the rare hall of fame, incidentally, that has an actual hall. Some could better be called rooms, or even alcoves, of fame, and many are really post office boxes of fame.

While fame can be gratifying, it is also confining. Fortunately, Dunphy's house in Manhassett, L.I., has three levels, but even so, space is at a premium, in part because Dunphy is an avid golfer who never turns down an invitation to play in a celebrity pro-am and has more than 50 tournament plaques in his upstairs den to prove it.

His hall of fame plaques are in the basement playroom, but the most impressive trophies are in the living room. The porcelain Boehm eagle presented by the American Sportcasters Hall of Fame is on the hi-fi, and the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Hall of Fame's massive marble slab containing Dunphy's likeness is next to the fireplace.

''It was too heavy to hang on the wall,'' explained Dunphy's wife and curator, Muriel.

His newest trophy, a model of an old Emerson radio, is on a table in the front hall, at least for a while.